SITSP 2011 – Sharing, Learning and Having Fun!

Last Friday I went to my first SAP Inside Track ever – The SAP Inside Track São Paulo 2011. I applied to present about a topic related to my first SCN blog (Usability in ABAP Programs). Even though I had seen some web presentations from SITSP2010, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the event. And when I got there…

By the time Keynote started, we had nearly 70 participants. Marlo Simon talked about the new SCN and also gave some tips on how you can stay connected with news from SAP’s technical world (twitter, blogs, articles).

After the keynote ended, we split the room in two, so that individual sessions could start. I’ll write about sessions I could follow (most of them abap-related ones).

I was the first one presenting that day at the SDN room. Some troubles with our infrastructure ended up delaying things over, but I really enjoyed presenting and interacting with participants. There were many experienced ABAP programmers, what add more value to our discussions. Thanks to everyone!

Then it was Lucattelli time, with a very interesting section about dynamic ABAP programming. He presented some tips and tricks that helped him throughout his “ABAP life”. Some people said he was casting “black magic” in his AS 🙂 Cool!

And I have to say that, by 11am we had a lot of tweets sharing pictures and thoughts about the SIT. Following the #SITSP hashtag on twitter was one of the most enjoyable things of the event. I could even get online feedback for my presentation! Here’s the archivist link for the #SITSP hashtag –http://archivist.visitmix.com/169b37e6/7

We had lunch and I was amazed by how many connections I had already made that day. Seriously, I think I got to know 30+ people last friday.

Back from lunch, Marcelo Ramos did also a very good presentation, talking about ABAP Objects and some other cool stuff, like his projects ABAP MVC and ABAP Chess. Sadly, I couldn’t follow the whole presentation, due to personal stuff. I stayed out of the event for a hour or so, but I managed to keep posted about the event following #SITSP on Twitter!

After Marcelo’s presentation I thought that most people would go away, but to my suprize many people stayed to hear what Henrique Pinto had to say about HANA. And he sure had a LOT to say about it. I must say I got a little amazed by HANA technology, as I still didn’t know exactly what it was before the presentation.

It was nearly 18h30 when Henrique finished his presentation and we still had 30 participants waiting for the final presentations. And then we started with the Demo Break Sessions:

(sorry Marlo, couldn’t find any picture of your HTML5 presentation)

We finished everything around 20h, and the feeling was that our job was done that day.

And in case you’re wondering: of course we had some big problems during the event. Our infrastructure issues cost too much time and that had an impact in our agenda. The presentation order got confused and unfortunately some of them had to be moved. People that tried to follow online may have missed presentations they wanted. And this picture shows exactly how we were working hard to get everything done:

But the feeling by the end of the day was that the event was a success. We got 90+ people watching presentations, sharing, tweeting and making new contacts. I think that’s why some of us (me included) thought that it was a good time to go grab something to eat and record a new episode for our SAPCastBrasil podcast! We ended up talking until 22h30!

It was my first SIT. I talked about technology from 8am to 11pm. I met some friends, met ppl I only knew online, and met ppl whom I’d never seem before. I learned stuff. And that’s what makes me say that I’ll definitely be on the next SITs.

Congratulations to everyone involved in the event and an special thanks to everyone that showed up at my presentation. See you next time!

6 Comments

It was also my first Inside Track. The event was really helpful. I’d like that every company and every employee could participate.

We had a great number of people and amazing topics. It’s difficult to vote on a favorite presentation.

Keynote – How good would be if all words spoken reached every SAP consultant ears.

Usability presentation discussed a renegade subject with it totally important in SW development world.. samething for ABAP Objects presentation

Regarding Dynamic ABAP – It’s good to know that you have a common understanding as the presenter and that you already worked with some stuff considered advanced for many.

HANA, Gateway and HTML5 – These ones were also great. It made me rethink about everything SAP-related I learned until today. I know that the world is going to change a lot in a few time and there’s time to prepare myself.

The session was great, thanks for asking. I presented for at least 30 ABAPers, and we could discuss daily situations caused by lack of understanding between users, functional consultants and developers.

I’ll still bring more discussion here to SCN on that topic, it’s one of my future blogs. Hope you get there and add more to the discussion yet to come!